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BENEDICT V ADAKKEKARA ESTABLISHMENT OF CAPUCHIN ORDER IN INDIA I. A · TRAVAILOUS INCEPTION (1869-1916) In 1972 the Indian Capuchins, who are today 800-strong, com– memorated ceremonially the fiftieth year (1922-72) of the establishment of their Order in their country. The opening of their Novitiate in 1922 in Sardhana in the State of Utter Pradesh in the North of India, as a matter of fact, turned out to be a far cry from the analogous venture embarked on five decades previously 1 • Way back in 1871 Mgr Jacopi 2 had been mandated by the Capuchin GeJ;J.eral Minister, Fr Ni– cholas of S. Giovanni in Marignano, to lay in India the foundation for the Order. It is true that his laboured efforts to begin the Novitiate and to keep it going met with a premature end, but the alumni of this institution contributed their mite to replenishing the thinning ranks of the missionaries. Furthermore, the enterprise served both as prec– edent and impulse to the attempt in 1922 3 • 1 This has been an unexplored terrain. The present monograph draws entirely on the inedited material in the following Archives: AAAgra ( = Archdiocesan Archives, Agra), AGCap ( = General Archives of Capuchins, Rome), APCapBologna ( = Archives of the Capuchin Province of Bologna, Bologna), APCapTusc ( = Archives of the Capuchin Province of Tuscany, Florence). The author is grateful to Fr Andrea Maggioli, the Provincial Archivist of Bologna, for helping him to locate the sources, and to Fr Giacomo Carlini, the Archivist of the Tuscan Province, for his expert guidance in perusing the epistolary collections and for procuring copies of related documents from Agra. Fr Isidoro de Villapadierna, the Ge'neral Archivist of the Order and staff member of the Capuchin Historical Institute, Rome, was kind enough to read through the whole MS and make pertinent observations. 2 Michelangelo Jacopi of Serravezza (Prov. Tuscany): nominated Apostolic Vicar of Agra in 1868; promoted as first Archbishop of Agra in 1886. 3 The following works help to situate this study in a global historical context: Clemente da Terzorio, Le missioni dei minori cappuccini. Sunto storico, IX, Indie Orientali,